4 FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N v. TED CRUZ FOR SENATE KAGAN, J., dissenting than it otherwise would. Id., at 22. But the Court has viewed such limits as troublesome only if they are so low as to prevent candidates from raising “the resources necessary for effective advocacy.” Randall v. Sorrell, 548 U. S. 230, 247 (2006) (plurality opinion) (quoting Buckley, 424 U. S., at 21). In the usual case, the incidental effect of a contribution restriction on a campaign’s speech does not count as a significant First Amendment burden. See Randall, 548 U. S., at 246–247. Under that precedent, Section 304 “entails only a marginal restriction” on speech, because it regulates contributions alone. Buckley, 424 U. S., at 20. The provision leaves a campaign free to spend any amount of money for speech. Likewise, it leaves the candidate himself—here, Senator Ted Cruz—free to do so. The candidate can (in the majority’s words) “use personal funds to finance campaign speech” without limit; if he wishes, he can devote his whole fortune to “speech on behalf of his own candidacy.” Ante, at 10–11. Section 304 restricts only the use of third-party contributions to support his efforts—which, as just shown, imposes a far more modest First Amendment burden. Recall how Section 304 works: It prevents post-election campaign contributions from going to repay large loans that the candidate has made to his campaign. So the provision limits— much as standard contribution caps do—only the candidate’s ability to shift the costs of his electoral speech to others. Or said a bit differently, it addresses not a candidate’s “self-fund[ing],” ante, at 12, but only his reliance on thirdparty financing. And even that regulation of third-party contributions is a narrow one. Under Section 304, a campaign can always accept donations for small loans a candidate makes. And it can use pre-election donations to retire even his sizable loans. The statute just insists that donations for that purpose occur when speech is ongoing, and before everyone